Diaries

Forget ND. Here comes the first REAL test of Michigan's defense? Why do I say that? Because Indiana is 11th in the nation in passing and 10th in points scored and has a senior QB with 30 career TD passes. Last year they scored 33 points on us while rushing for nearly 200 yards.

Are you scared yet?

No?

Okay, maybe that's because you looked at their scedule and realized that while they were scoring close to 40 points a game, they were doing so against what amounts to the equivalent of Bowling Green's JV team.

No, seriously. They've played three games, against something called "Towson", Western Kentucky, and Akron. I'm not exactly sure, but I think some of those might be division 1 opponents. Let's compare:

Michigan is pretty good from year to year, Michigan State is usually hovering around .500. Western Michigan is a middling MAC team. Kentucky SUCKS, Kentucky State exists? (maybe) So what does that say about Western Kentucky?

Yeah, Michigan played FCS UMass, but at least that SOUNDS like it could be a FBS school. "Towson"?? Is not exactly a two time defending nation champion of the lower level.

How bad are these teams? They're a combined 1-11 with the lone win coming in OT against *drumroll please* COASTAL CAROLINA! Although Akron did almost beat GARDNER WEBB in OT. In the other ten games, Indiana's opponents were outscored by an average of about 40 points (no I didn't actually do the math, but I'm not really that far off).

So while I did manage to dig up some film on them, there's not much we can learn other than formations and base plays (and the fact that IND is wearing some uglyass 1970's uniforms).

Grannie grab your gun.

Hey, remember when ND played Nevada? And Nevada had Gumar from 'Harold and Gumar goto whitecastle' playing QB. They ran this funky type of offense with the RB 5 yards behind the QB who was already in the shotgun. That's called the pistol. It's also what UCLA just used to depants Texas and will probably be the next fad spreading across the college football world, if it isn't already.

The point of this alignment is to get a little bit more downhill momentum for your running back so that he can hit the holes with speed.

You still get the ability to do playaction, but you lose the lateral fakes. To regain the lateral motion, the RB will line up next to the QB in the shotgun like this:

On Running downs, they might put a fullback into the formation. If the QB was under center it would just be an offset I formation. But with the group of them back an extra 5 yards, we have to call it something different. I'm gonna call it the .38 caliber.

Here we have both the FB and the TE to the right, so this is likely to be a run to the right 60-70% of the time. In this case, they ran a zone dive to the left.

When they go spread, they like to use three receivers in a bunch so they can run pick plays.

Here's a running play with the bunch formation.

The middlebackers and the safety are confused and out of position.

The middle backer blitzes to the wrong side, opening up a huge running lane.

So the hoosiers get an easy 50 yard TD with 4 blockers on 2 defenders at the point of attack.

QB Ben Chappell is the same guy that put 30 some points on us last year. 5th year senior? Not a super strong arm, throws with his body. Good size. Not fast. Decent pocket presence. Likes to do 3 step drops for quick routes or playaction boots. Has good timing with his receivers, can hit them on a fly in stride. Doesn't throw well on the run. His strength is in reading the defense and picking the right receiver to go to. I suggest we run more pressure and man coverage with a single high safety this week.

#88 Belcher is their deep threat. Tall kid, not blazing speed, but chews up a lot of yardage with long strides.

TB Darius Willis is their main running threat. He's 6 foot, 220 ish and can run through arm tackles. Has a good head fake. He also had an 85 yard TD against us last year.

TE #83. Tall, soft hands. Less athletic version of rudolph.

O-Line. They look small and meh. This is probably what separates Indiana from most big ten teams. There's just not a lot of talent there.

On Defense

They run a base 3-4 on 1st and 2nd down, will not substitute against a spread, instead they flex out their OLB to cover the slots. On 3rd down they like to switch to either a nickle, or a cover 1 to put extra DB's on the slot receivers.

Not a lot of speed. Towson's QB had a 40 yard scramble against them on a broken play. So like WOOOOO DENARD! They've given up oodles of yardage against teams that really don't run the ball very well.

Their safety #10 looks like a weaklink. (He may even have been replaced already.) Takes a lot of bad angles. Towson managed several plays over 40 yards against them.

They've given up huge amounts of yards to teams that don't sport very good offensive lines. Here's an example of what might be the reason why.

This is Indiana's short yardage defense. If you're saying, 'but wait a minute that looks just like their base 3-4!" then you've been paying attention. Do the hoosier's have a defensive coordinator? Because this personell package, in this situation is almost criminally stupid.

It's 3rd and 1 and they're in a base 3-4.

It's 3rd and 1 in THE REDZONE and they're still in a base 3-4!

It's 3rd and 1 in the redzone against a DOUBLE TIGHT formation and they're in a 3-4?!

It's 3rd and 1 in the redzone against a double tight formation WITH A FULLBACK MEANING THERE ISN'T A SINGLE WR IN THE GAME, and they're still in a base 3-4 with 4 DBs!!!?! (well hey, at least they walked up one of the safeties...)

It's 3rd and 1 in the redzone against a double tight formation with a fullback and there are EIGHT OFFENSIVE LINEMEN AGAINST YOUR 3 DOWN LINEMEN!!!!!!!!! THEY ONLY NEED TO GAIN 1 FREAKING YARD!!!!!!!

It's 3rd and 1 in the redzone against a double tight formation with a fullback AND IT'S AN UNBALANCED LINE TO THE RIGHT!!!!!!OMG HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT?!!?!

It's 3rd and 1 in the redzone against a double tight formation with extra o-linemen, no WR, in an unbalanced formation to the right WITH THE H BACK IN A WING TO THE RIGHT!!!! THE UNBALANCED SIDE!!!! THERE ARE 9 OFFENSIVE PLAYERS FROM THE BALL TO THE RIGH!!!!! AND INDIANA HAS 4 (FOUR!) PLAYERS COVERING 2 (TWO!) ON THE OTHER SIDE!!!?! WTF ARE YOU DOING??!

So you won't be surprised that WKU ran to the right and scored a TD on this play.

Jebus, ಠ_ಠSpecial Teams:

They use a spread punt formation.

Had an okay return against Towson and got a 70+ yard return against WKU, so they must at least know their blocking assignments on kickoff returns.

Tandon Doss, who some of you might remeber is a pretty nifty runner, even if he doesn't have a world class top gear.

Conclusions:

Should be a high scoring game. And most likely a preview of things to come. If the offense doesn't score more than 45 points, they should hang their heads in shame. The key will be in stopping Chappell. If we can hold them to 30 points, I'll be happy. (not really, but I'll take it.) Their running back is talented enough, but that O-line just doesn't run block very well, and we should have a sizeable advantage there.

I've added the Fremeau Efficiency Index. Also added the basic data for each category (score, rush yards, pass yards, etc.), the number of possessions, and the data per possession.

Synopsis: After 4 games, Michigan is currently ranked #11 in scoring offense and #64 in scoring defense. Based on these rankings, M has a 43% chance for a +5 WLM (9-4 or better) season and an 83% chance for a winning season. Note that if Defense rankings improve just slightly to the Top 60, the probability of a +5 WLM increases to 70%. Offense continues to trend better each week. Defense improved slightly. (See line chart below.)

Based on the FEI (Fremeau Efficiency Index), Michigan is predicted to win between 8.7 and 9.2 games (excluding bowl games but adjusted with +1 for M's one FCS opponent).

Based on the Fremeau Efficiency Index, M is favored by 18 points. Using the Sagarin Predictor, M is favored by 10.7 points in the Indiana game (Vegas Odds Opened at 10.5). Notice that the three Sagarin odds are very close to one another this week.

Overall this year, M is averaging 3.6 points per possession (PPP) and 49 YPP. The defense is giving up just 1.9 PPP and 33 YPP.

Note that FEI completely excludes all non-FBS data (the W-L record is only for FBS games, etc.). Therefore, you need to add 1 to the projected numbers to get the final predicted wins for M this year. The FEI is a drive based analysis considering each of the nearly 20,000 drives each year in college football. The data is filtered to eliminate garbage time (at the half or end of game) and is adjusted for opponent. A team is rewarded for playing well against good teams (win or lose) and is punished more severely for playing poorly against bad teams than it is rewarded for playing well against bad teams. I've included the GE basic data so you can see the impact of adjusting for opponent. (See: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/fei-ratings/2010/fo-basics-our-college-stats )

Sagarin uses two basic ratings: PREDICTOR (in which the score MARGIN is the only thing that matters) and ELO-CHESS (in which winning and losing only matters, the score margin is of no consequence). The overall rating is a synthesis of the two diametrical opposites, ELO-CHESS and PREDICTOR.

Per Sagarin: ELO-CHESS is “very politically correct. However, it is less accurate in its predictions for upcoming games than is PREDICTOR”.

Here is the U/M vs. Indiana National Statistical Rankings with the advantage for each category indicated (all categories within 10% are considered a "push"). Biggest differences are M rushing O (#2) versus I rushing D (#92) and conversely I passing O (#11) versus M passing D (#105).

Here is the line graph for Scoring Offense and Scoring Defense.

Here are the week by week National Statistical Rankings for Michigan (cumulative thru the week indicated):

I have included the major rankings for offense and defense but scoring rankings show the best correlation to winning and losing. Scoring rankings are based on PPG. Rushing, Passing, and Total rankings are based on YPG.

Here is the basic data for Michigan (each individual week followed by totals and then average per game). I've included Total Possessions for Offense & Defense along with the calculated data per possession. Number of possessions do not include running out the clock at the half or end of game. Offense Plays and Defense Plays are better indicators than Time of Possession.

Using Scoring Offense and Scoring Defense National Rankings for the past 5 years (FBS AQ teams only), this table shows the percentage of teams that finish the season with a +WLM and a +5 WLM. For example, teams that finished in the Top 40 in both offense and defense had a 100% chance to be +WLM and an 82% chance to be +5 WLM (9-4 or better).

Each year, of the 66 FBS AQ teams, 65% (43 teams) end up with a + WLM and 36% (24 teams) end up with a +5 WLM.

[Ed.: Bump. As the OP notes, this data is still very shaky four games in, but the amount of improvement in the offense is so great it can hardly be a mirage.]

In my post the other day, Why should 2010 not be another 2009?, I looked at what our offense has accomplished in 2010 relative to what it had accomplished at this point in the season in 2009. It had two meaningful results:

1) This years' offense draws its potency from highly reproduceable, base set offensive plays, unlike the high variance scrambles and special teams play of 2009.

2) This year's offense is putting up far superior numbers to what they did a year ago (up 28%!!) against as-good or slightly-better competition (77th strength-of-schedule in 2010 vs 114th in 2009).

The Conclusion From the Former:

Our offense will come back to earth from meteoric numbers in out-of-conference play, BUT we have statistically significant evidence to believe that our offense will be far more reliable than last year due to depth, experience, and dilithium.

The Worry:

Our defense cannot stop any team that is executing, whether it's UMass or that-team-down-south. In other words, our wins and losses are going to be determined by how good an offense we face each week, and how well they execute.

Examples: UConn played bad (dropped passes, poor throws) and we stopped them. On the flip side UMass played well (good schemes, good execution) and they had their way with us.

Each and every Big10 offense we play is going to put up at least or slightly better numbers than their normalized offensive output.

So let's find out how bad it's going to be against us with a--

Chart of Infinite Defensive Gloom (after 4 weeks)

Rank

Opponent

N-PPG

N-YPG

SoS

1

osu

39.5

409.4

61.38

2

Wisconsin

31.2

381.7

59.93

3

Iowa

28.7

355.1

60.53

4

Connecticut

28.2

333.7

64.34

5

MSU

27.2

343.2

56.11

6

BGSU

26.6

310.7

72.20

7

Indiana

25.7

260.1

47.36

8

UMass

23.1

351.4

57.92

9

Notre Dame

23.0

426.3

75.99

10

Penn St

20.9

330.0

68.00

11

Illinois

20.7

294.0

62.24

12

Purdue

17.3

297.9

60.47

2009 Chart (requested by commentors)

2009 Rank

2009 Opponent

Expected N-PPG

Expected N-YPG

Actual PPG

Actual YPG

1

MSU

32.5

404.7

26

417

2

Wisconsin

30.7

402.8

45

469

3

Notre Dame

30.0

455.0

34

490

4

osu

28.8

366.0

21

318

5

Penn St

27.4

387.7

35

396

6

Purdue

27.2

383.1

38

494

7

Illinois

24.1

391.7

38

500

8

Iowa

23.2

336.3

30

367

9

Indiana

22.7

352.8

33

467

Metrics

Normalized Offensive Output - The important thing we're doing here is not looking at the raw PPG and YPG of these teams because it does not account for how good of competition they have played. Four weeks in, the SoS data is far from reliable, but it is at least forming.

Our opponent with the strongest SoS serves as the baseline (Notre Dame with 3 Big10 teams and Stanford). In other words, these numbers estimate what all of these teams' offenses would have generated if they had all played Notre Dame's schedule thus far (Purdue, Michigan, MSU, and Stanford).

Strength of Schedule is taken from Sagarin rankings. (BGSU and UMass are going to have way-inflated numbers at this time, but I included them on the chart anyway as a reminder this is not a perfect analysis and as an interesting couple of data points to track as the season progresses.)

N-PPG or Normalized Points-per-game is taken from the teams average PPG with a SoS multiplier factored in to deflate numbers from playing bad competition and inflate numbers based on playing good competition.

N-YPG or Normalized Yards-per-game is calculated using the same SoS multiplier as N-PPG but using this metric will help us determine a less variant guess as to how offenses will perform (PPG is subject to wild variance based on turnovers and special teams).

I am only tracking our 12 opponents because the only thing that matters is the twelve games Michigan plays and I don't want to get depressed that we are playing Wisconsin and Iowa instead of NW and Minnesota.

Results

This chart pans out as expected. That-team-down-south is the clearcut leader. (Michigan is actually second in N-PPG with 36.3 but FIRST in N-YPG with a staggering 494.5).

We see a clearly defined pecking order in the Big10 that matches very closely the general consensus: clear-cut leaders in OSU-Wisconsin, a muddled middle of Iowa-MSU-Indiana, and a struggling bottom of offenses PSU-Illinois-Purdue.

The exceptions are Indiana, which is trending higher up the rankings due to its offense, and Penn St, which was generally considered a top-4 team in the Big10 going into the season (but is clearly not the case with their offense).

UMass and BGSU will continue to fall down this chart as their SoS gets watered down with conference and 1-AA play.

Conclusions Based on Not Enough Data

NSFMF! Teams always seem to play their lights out when they play Michigan. Michigan's defense has a way of making teams look better than they are. Notre Dame for instance had their highest offensive output of the year against Michigan, operating at 125% of their average YPG.

If we take the MOST pessimistic view and give our opponents 125% of their offensive AND scoring outputs against us and only give ourselves 80% (assumption our offense slows down entering league play) of our average going into the Big10, Michigan ends the season 7-5 with wins over PSU, Illinois, and Purdue.

But remember:

Rank

Team

N-PPG

N-YPG

SoS

--

Michigan

36.3

494.5

66.77

If instead we give ourselves just our average offensive production going into this weekend - our Big10 expected record jumps to 6-2... 10-2 overall!! - with losses coming from Wisconsin and that-team-down-south.

Where does the truth lie? Probably somewhere in between 6-2 and 3-5. Would you take that outcome at the start of the season? In a heartbeat? I know I would.

It is going to be tremendous to watch this Michigan team storm into the Big10 season knowing that our offense only needs to hold serve and our defense can surrender season-best performances from every single opponent and we still have a fighting chance in all of those games! And lest we forget... DILITIHIUM!

For now, I think we can look at this and add one more reason to the growing pile of why 2010 is NOT 2009! Get excited! Indiana here we come!

Prediction for Indiana:

Efficiency

Team

N-PPG

N-YPG

125%

Indiana

32.2

325

Michigan's ground game operates at MINIMUM of 100% our normalized average and puts up above-average PPG, but since we only score touchdowns we go to the next closest number after 36! Indiana plays their lights out and operates at 125% of their normalized efficiency, mostly through the air.

It's only fall, but that means spring is just around the corner (ok, a couple corners), which means it's time for an update on the 3-time defending National Champion Michigan Lacrosse team.

The Conference

First things first, the CCLA (Michigan's conference) underwent a bit of restructuring, and the Wolverines will face a different slate in conference. Last year, Michigan was in the CCLA North, along with Michigan State and the trio of directional Michigans. The CCLA South included Buffalo, Miami (NTM), Pitt, West Virginia, and Ball State. Here are the changes, via the @UmichLacrosse Twitter feed:

Toledo and Ohio are new programs, but it shouldn't make a huge difference. Michigan and Michigan State are clearly the class of the conference, with the rest being dregs. The conference tournament will be held May 7th and 8th at Saline High School, with the top seed on each side facing the #2 from the opposite division.

The Schedule

That brings us to the schedule, which you can find in its entirety on the Michigan Lacrosse website. The Wolverines have a trio of preseason games against D-1 Bellarmine and D-3 squads Wittenberg and Kenyon. The first two teams may sound familiar, as they were Wolverine opponents in the 2010 preseason, and Michigan handled each of them comfortably.

The Wolverines open the regular season at home against Florida, before embarking on their spring break trip to Los Angeles. They'll play a neutral-site game against Oregon at Harvard-Westlake High School, and road contests at Loyola-Marymount and Chapman.

Following that trip, the Wolverines will hit the road again, heading to Athens, Ohio to kick off conference play against the Ohio Bobcats before starting a seven-game home stand (I guess this makes up for having only four home games all of last year). Rival BYU and Pittsburgh come in one weekend, followed by Boston College and UC-Santa Barbara, then Colorado State and Arizona State. Missouri is the only opponent on the final weekend.

Following the home stand, the Wolverines take on Michigan State at Birmingham Seaholm High School in the Great Lakes Lacrosse Classic. On the final weekend of the regular season, the Wolverines head to The Glass City for their third and final divisional game against Toledo.

The Wolverines are certainly testing themselves in the non-conference. All were MCLA tournament teams last year (as was conference-mate Michigan State) except Loyola-Marymount and Florida (and the Gators were one of the first teams out). Colorado State, Arizona State, Chapman, Oregon, and BYU finished in spots 2-6 in the final LaxPower MCLA power rankings, with Arizona State falling to Michigan in the MCLA finals, and Chapman meeting the same fate in the semis.

The Team

Michigan lost the following players following last season:

Name

Position

Stats

Zach Mueller*

Defense

21GB, 1A

Jordan Kirshner

Midfield

13G, 11A , 3rd Tm AA

Jamie Goldberg

Midfield

11G, 15A, 14GB

Anthony Hrusovsky

Midfield

12G, 12A, 2nd Tm AA

Kevin Zorovich

Attack

14G, 26A, 88GB, 2nd Tm AA

Clark McIntyre*

Attack

22G, 23GB

David Reinhard

FOGO

.721FO%, 110GB, 1st-Tm AA

Michael Bartomioli

Midfield

3G, 21GB

Bob Diehl

Defense

14GB

David Rogers

Midfield

9G, 8A

Svet Tintchev

Midfield

13G, 5A

Josh Ein

Attack

22G, 9A, 28GB

The graduating seniors lost a single game in their final three years (last year at Colorado).

Despite losing a number of exceptional players, the Wolverines aren't coming into the year with a bare cupboard. In fact, Michigan's pair of 2011 captains, attack Trevor Yealy and defenseman Harry Freid, were first-team All-Americans last year. Long-stick midfielder Matt Asperheim and goalie Mark Stone were third-team and honorable mention, respectively. Thomas Paras was second on the team in scoring last year, and he'll be just a sophomore in 2011. With a number of young defensive players ready to step up, and Edward Ernst stepping in to replace Reinhard on faceoffs, there is plenty of returning talent on this squad.

The Wolverines add an excellent recruiting class (most likely the tops in the MCLA, though there are no rankings for such things that I know of), comprised of 13 players to an already-strong team. Even East Coast lacrosse fans will recognize some of the schools: Philadelphia Conestoga (Jeff Chu was the team's captain and leading scorer, and six of his teammates ended up going to Division-1 schools), Georgetown Prep (Fern Murias is pictured at right - seven of his teammates will play D-1 ball this spring), and Brunswick (Brett Moscati saw four teammates go D-1). The Wolverines even picked up a transfer from a D-1 school in Ann Arbor Native Patrick Stansik, returning home from Bucknell (where his brother was an All-American).

Etc.

More on the team as the season approaches. For Michigan Lacrosse fans in Central Ohio, you can see the Wolverines' lone fall ball scrimmages against Denison University on October 24th... though the Grand Valley State Lacrosse page on Facebook says the Wolverines will also host the MCLA D2 Lakers on October 13th in Oosterbaan Fieldhouse. If there are more fall ball updates, I'll post them.

There are times in every person's life that are special: getting your driver's license, graduation, your wedding day, the birth of a child. However, for many of us who are too young to experience many of the aforementioned events, one of those times is being on the field of the Big House during a game. Well, this past Saturday, I had the privilege, nay, the HONOR to be on the field for pre-game warm-ups. Some of you may recall me posting about this earlier before the game against BGSU, and some of you wished me to tell you how it went...so here we go.

We arrived near the Eastern Gate entrance around 11 AM. At first we didn't see who we were supposed to meet, but eventually they found us in order to give us our field passes. I was initially anticipating awesome laminated passes that hung around my neck, but I soon realized that I would be getting a Willy Wonka style "golden ticket" stuck on the back of my ticket. Regardless of the "disappointment," I will cherish this ticket forever.

We made our way to the gate to the tunnel, and at this point, my heart is pounding, my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, there's vomit...wait, sorry got off track there. I was excited as hell to walk through the tunnel for the first time EVER! We stopped just shy of the gate to wait for the team. After taking way too many pictures of nothing, the team finally emerged from the locker room:

Then, finally, it was our turn. Never before have I experienced such pride. Here I was, walking in the hallowed steps of such athletes as Charles Woodson and Desmond Howard, and of course, coaches like Lloyd Carr, Bo Schembechler and now Rich Rodriguez. Needless to say, I got goosebumps (goosepimples maybe?). Enjoy the vicarious experience:

We slowly (on purpose) made our way to the north endzone, where I was given the treat of watching the DL do warm-ups. As per blogger suggestions. I said NOTHING (although very hard) and instead took many pictures and a couple of vids of the players and drills. I don't know how many of you have stood less than 10 feet away from Big Will and Mike Martin, but they are HUGE!

After the joy of watching the DL do their thing, it got a bit hectic. We were being told to "move along" towards our seats by the event staff, while the offense was getting their reps in. I was trying my best to get a shot of Denard in action, but my crappy digital camera has the worst zoom quality ever. Sorry I have no evidence, but it was COOL!

Afterwards, the players all gathered in a circle (you know what's coming!), and I was literally within arm's length of such players as: Roy Roundtree, Mike Shaw, Vincent Smith, Taylor Lewan, Devin Gardner, and Denard "Dilithium" Robinson. Oh, and before I show you the vid, yes, Lewan did the "Flying Denard" routine, but sadly I missed the chance to get it on film.

If you can see from the video, Barwis was in the middle of this Circle of Awesomeness, and he's freaking intense, so if you haven't already, sell your dog, buy a wolf, and name it Barwis (BE A MAN!). Shortly after that, things got uneventful. We were told to "move along" once again, and I ran into the refs. [Side Note: I told the referee to have a "good game" and he acknowledged me. Sorry to say, but seeing as how the refereeing in that game was shit, I may be partially to blame for jinxing the man. Just sayin'....]

Now comes the summit of the experience. As we're making our way to our seats, we are literally right behind the Michigan bench area. Obviously we aren't going to be here forever, but we lingered for as long as we could until someone found us out. Not only did I get to watch the team run onto the field, but afterwards I was less than 10 feet away from the likes of John U. Bacon, GERG, and GERG's hair.

Sadly, we were found out, and we were forced to exit the field. But before I ended this personal mecca of mine, I lingered near the top of the steps to the field for one last time, in order to see the march of the "M" to the north endzone:

It was a glorious time I spent on the field, and one I will never forget. It is my wish that one day you will all be able to share in the experience I had, to stand amongst the players you root for every Saturday, and to walk in the shoes of giants through the tunnel. Watching Michigan devour a weakling MAC school like BGSU was a joy in and of itself, but that, and no other game to precede it, will ever replace the memories of the time I spent in the presence of the Leaders and the Best. Go Blue!

Here's another update on Demetrius Hart, since there have been quite a few questions about him recently. I last posted that he will be announcing his decision sometime next week. I spoke with Dee's mom and she told me that he will be making his final decision Tuesday of next week, or Wednesday at the latest.

Remember that Demetrius and his family are going up to Alabama for an official visit this weekend. They will also be joined by teammates Ha'Sean Clinton-Dix (Current Alabama commit) and Chris Gallon, along with Demetrius' running back coach, who happens to be an Alabama fan.

I also spoke with Ha'Sean Clinton-Dix yesterday about a recent comment he made about the weather being a factor at Michigan. He had said that it was too cold, and he didn't think he would like that. It now seems that he is taking a different stance.

I would have to get used to the weather eventually anyway, so it's not a big deal anymore. Dee and I are going to be coming back up there for an unofficial, I'm just not sure when yet.

2012 Nick Patti will also be coming back up to Michigan for the Wisconsin game, and I also gave an update the other day about another Dr. Phillips teammate in Roderick Ryles, who has started to hear from the Michigan coaches.